About the banks comparison table

Market Forces is about “using your money as a force for good”. With our banks comparison table we aim to show people which banks are investing in the fossil fuel industry and enable individuals to take action, whether by calling for better action from a bank or finding an alternative bank that isn’t financing the coal, oil and gas industries. We’ve included over 120 banks, mutuals and credit unions in our table and tried to make it easy for you to find information and take action to change your bank’s behaviour, or just change your bank!

We only publish what we know. The table is not intended to be a “ranking”. Rather, it aims to clearly present the information Market Forces has gathered so people can compare their current bank, credit union or building society’s position on investing in the fossil fuel industry against possible alternatives. The table only deals with the issue of fossil fuel investments and does not take into account other environmental and social issues. The scope of our dataset is also limited to capturing fossil fuel lending from:

Australian lenders to fossil fuel projects located globally (including within Australia)

Lenders outside Australia to fossil fuel projects located within Australia

How we’ve divided up the banks

We’ve sorted the banks and credit unions into two categories, making it easier to search and browse. The tabs at the top of the table allow you find:

banks investing in the fossil fuels companies and their subsidiaries

banks that have no current record of funding fossil fuels.

The second tab heading (i.e. Banks with no current record of funding fossil fuels) is divided into three sections: 1) Banks with no record of funding fossil fuels and position statement provided; 2) Banks that previously funded fossil fuels but no longer do; 3) No record of funding fossil fuels but no position statement provided.

The bank comparison table also has an “All Banks A-Z” tab in case you want to search for a bank or credit union alphabetically. This tab also has a search bar.

How we collect these figures

Market Forces obtains primary data from finance industry databases provided by IJGlobal and Thomson Reuters. Further primary data is sourced from company filings, reports and market disclosures. Figures are cross-referenced for consistency and verified against secondary material (including Bloomberg and media reporting), as well as those listed above.

The loans we have captured include refinancings, as we consider each of these a conscious decision by a lender to continue supporting a project. Where corporate lending has occurred, we sought direction on the purposes of the loan and if this was not available, discounted the value of that loan to reflect the proportion of the company’s business that is involved in the fossil fuel supply chain.

We have tried to capture as much information as possible but a lack of transparency about fossil fuel lending means it will only ever be a partial picture. All values are in Australian dollars and no adjustments have been made to reflect the net present value of facilities arranged before 2017.

About the statements

Many banks and credit unions in the table did not appear in our research as having funded the fossil fuel industry in recent years. But we don’t take for granted that a bank doesn’t invest in fossil fuels, just because they have not shown up in our research. We asked each bank and credit union that didn’t appear in our research as having funded the fossil fuel industry the question: “What is your position on investing in the fossil fuel (coal, gas and oil) industry?”.

When we receive a response we publish it verbatim, without editorialising or judging it. The only edits we make are for the sake of brevity to make sure what we publish is the most relevant part of the position they provide. When banks publish the statement on their websites, we provide a link to the full statement.